4.0 availability?

[Eric Dunbar]

Judging by comments of people who installed the latest version there
are some installer/configuration bugs that need working out first.
It's probably a wise move on YDL's part to delay releasing a version
that won't install flawlessly on all standard configs. Right now they
limit access to early adopters who (more-or-less) will know what
they're doing.

Linux is maturing and becoming easier to use and that means that each
'generation' attracts more users. But, on average they'll have less
computer knowledge. Thus, making sure that YDL works "out of the box"
is imperative, especially if they want to make money selling CDs
and/or support. A user is not going to install an OS if she has to run
to YellowDog every 10 minutes for support (& pay them for the
priviledge) but you might be willing to pay $50 or $100 for support to
help you get over occasional humps.

e.g. me as a not-so-knowledgeable user: I experimented with YDL 2.1.
Out of the box I didn't find it particularly enticing: installation
was a chore, I had to search the web high and low for solutions _just_
to get Gnome/KDE/XWindows up and running and to get my screen to
display 1024x768 (vs. 640x480), and, then there were the "extra"
apps...

The browsers available were lightyears behind their Mac OS X
counterparts for stability and the other apps were quire immature
compared to their OS X versions.

Now I'm now playing with 3.0.1 and love it -- it ran for me "out of
the box". The apps aren't as slick or stable as on OS X yet, but the
price is right, the stability is tolerable and the polish is pretty
good. Some of them are certainly on par with what you could expect
from commercial software in the mid-1990s & a select few can go
head-to-head with current commercial offerings... and, then there's
GIMP a $0 counterpart of PhotoShop (amazing software for the price but
less than stellar interface... designed for right-click afficionadoes
and having a million and one windows showing up on the "dock" (though,
that's a GNOME design flaw and not the fault of GIMP... GIMP needs a
"traditional" mode where there's a menu bar (far more efficient from a
usability POV than right-click and sub-menu navigation))).

But, griping aside, the price is right, and with each iteration
software stability and ease of use improves. In a few years (now in
some cases) Microsoft will be hard pressed to sell Office when
OpenOffice et al (like AbiWord, GNUmeric) are free and will offer
similar stability and ease of use as found in the commercial packages.

Sorry for the long, rambly OT post.

Eric.

On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 06:48:08 -0400, Henry A. Leinhos <henry at leinhos.com> wrote:
> Not to complain, but we're comming up on a month after the Sept 29
> announcement.  I'd just like to get the CDs if there aren't any
> show-stopping bugs in the distro!
>  $0.02